NOS Chapter 54
by VolareChapter 54: North Lin Village (4)
The snow was still falling, and a thin layer had already accumulated on the ground as Yu Chunming walked into North Lin Village. He turned on his flashlight, holding it in front of him, his gaze sweeping around from time to time.
But North Lin Village was indeed just an unremarkable little village. It was already late at night, and not many households had their lights on, with only a few scattered glimmers of light filtering through the icy window patterns.
“Whereabouts is the hunter’s house Zhang Hui mentioned?” Liu Sheng, a police officer from the Linchang Police Station following behind, asked.
Yu Chunming pointed ahead: “Just around the corner.”
“Why can’t I see any lights?” Liu Sheng asked, somewhat puzzled. “Could it be they didn’t wait for us and went to sleep? Didn’t they say there was a dispute? Why is it so quiet?”
Yu Chunming frowned, also feeling suspicious. He strode to the front of the house and gently knocked on the lock of the door handle: “Linchang Police Station, did someone report a crime here?”
There was no response from inside the house. Yu Chunming casually pushed, and to his surprise, the door opened.
“I’ll take a look inside,” Liu Sheng said, moving forward.
Yu Chunming quickly grabbed him: “Hold on, we need to protect the scene. Let’s go to the back of the house first.”
But there was nothing at the back of the house. Apart from an empty dog chain and overly messy footprints on the ground, there was only dry firewood and weeds piled up by the villagers at the yard entrance, and not even a shadow could be seen.
“Did they go after the dog?” Liu Sheng suggested. “Let’s knock on the neighbors’ doors again.”
Yu Chunming was about to step forward, but just then, a “bang” suddenly came from not far away. It was unclear if it was someone’s sled falling over or a loose door panel.
“What was that noise?” Liu Sheng muttered. “Scared me.”
Yu Chunming’s face, however, instantly turned pale. He pressed his police baton to his waist with one hand and Liu Sheng’s shoulder with the other: “It sounds like gunfire.”
“Gunfire?” Liu Sheng stammered immediately.
As Fang Wang’s apprentice, he was just a clueless community police officer. Liu Sheng graduated from law school without attending police academy, let alone handling a gun in Za Mu Er, where there might not be a major gun-related case in a year and a half. Hearing Yu Chunming say it was gunfire, Liu Sheng was so frightened he shrank back.
“Officer Yu, what do we do, what do we do, what do we do?” he stuttered. “Should we go back?”
“Go back.” Yu Chunming never tried to be a hero when taking younger officers out on patrol. He said to Liu Sheng, “Quickly send a message to the station, saying something’s not right here, and have them send more people. We’ll wait on the main road.”
“Okay,” Liu Sheng said, relieved.
After giving instructions, Yu Chunming pressed his two-way radio and said to Guan Yao on the other end, “How’s your situation? Are you close to North Lin? If you’re close…”
Bang—
Yu Chunming didn’t finish his sentence when another loud noise came from not far away. This time, along with the loud noise came a pungent smell of gunpowder.
This smell of gunpowder was unique to the ethnic minority hunters of Jin A Lin Mountain, a trace left behind by the loading of bolt-action carbine bullets.
Liu Sheng “whimpered” and couldn’t help but grab Yu Chunming’s arm: “Officer Yu, Officer Yu, let’s go, let’s go…”
Yu Chunming quickly turned off the two-way radio and pushed Liu Sheng in front of him. However, in the next second, something came whistling through the air from behind them.
Whoosh! Bang—
The smell of gunpowder instantly dispersed. Yu Chunming was the first to react. He grabbed Liu Sheng, and together they leaned to the side and plunged into the pile of firewood at the hunter’s backyard entrance.
Bang bang bang! Next, there were three consecutive gunshots. The bullets didn’t hit anything, and wood chips sprayed out above their heads. Yu Chunming saw an opportunity, picked up Liu Sheng, stepped on the edge where the bullets were being fired from, and staggered behind the courtyard wall.
Liu Sheng was trembling all over with fright. He grabbed Yu Chunming’s hand tightly and asked in a weak voice, “Officer Yu, was that really a gun?”
Yu Chunming looked calm as usual. He unloaded the police baton, held it in his hand, and nodded: “Yes, someone is firing shots from the woods over there.”
Of course, Liu Sheng couldn’t know that Yu Chunming, who had been a criminal police officer for over ten years, was also encountering such a dangerous “gun battle” for the first time, and he didn’t even have a gun in his hand.
Someone was running in the woods, and the scattered dry branches and fallen leaves on the side of the road crunched underfoot. Then, gunshots rang out again, and soon, the strong smell of gunpowder once again drifted into the nostrils of the two men.
“These bullets aren’t aimed at us,” Yu Chunming suddenly said.
“What?” Liu Sheng looked at him in panic. “Not aimed at us?”
Before the words were spoken, a shadow had flashed past the wall, and the bullets followed.
Bang bang bang! Three shots ended, and the shadow disappeared.
“Danfeng Pass, Qianjin Slope…” Yu Chunming murmured to himself, “Who is here?”
Liu Sheng couldn’t understand what he was saying at all. He tried to stand up and look into the woods.
“Don’t move!” Yu Chunming grabbed him. “We’ll walk along the edge of the courtyard wall. When we get to the front yard, I’ll draw the bullets to the right, and you go left, get in the car and drive straight to the main road. Once you reach the main road, immediately notify the station and have them send more SWAT officers.”
Liu Sheng hadn’t completely lost his mind. He widened his eyes in horror: “Officer Yu, how can you go alone to draw the bullets away? I’ll go with you…”
“If you come with me, who will notify the station?” Yu Chunming glanced at the flashing two-way radio, knowing that Guan Yao on the other end was anxiously calling out to them, but right now, the gun muzzle behind him made it impossible to press the switch that would make a sound, and it was even more impossible to reply to Guan Yao in this critical moment.
“Take this.” Yu Chunming put the two-way radio in Liu Sheng’s hand. “Captain Guan is on the other end. Once you get on the main road, tell him there’s a problem in North Lin. If he’s close, have him bring people to support us quickly. And tell him there are people illegally carrying guns in North Lin!”
“Okay, okay!” Liu Sheng hurriedly agreed.
When everything was arranged, Yu Chunming grabbed him and left. The bullets that had chased after that shadow brushed against their scalps.
“Is there any movement on the Danfeng Pass side?” Guan Yao, not knowing what he had heard, turned to look at the mountain depression not far away.
Min Chao, who had come here for a shift change, squinted his eyes and asked strangely, “Is the wind that strong?”
Guan Yao shook his head: “It doesn’t sound like wind to me.”
“If it’s not wind, could it be…”
Bang bang bang! Crack—
A corner of the courtyard wall collapsed, and gravel rained down.
Yu Chunming stumbled and tripped over a fire stick that the hunter had placed at the corner.
“Officer Yu?” Liu Sheng turned back to help.
But Yu Chunming pushed him forward with all his might: “Go left!”
At this time, Liu Sheng knew what kind of burden he was carrying on his shoulders. He couldn’t put on an inappropriate “we’ll go together” act with Yu Chunming. After being unable to raise his head under the barrage of bullets, Liu Sheng had to continue running forward with his body hunched over.
The wind was howling, the snow was flying, and someone was running wildly on the empty road in North Lin.
He couldn’t say how long it had been before the bang-bang bullets disappeared from behind him, and he couldn’t say how long it had been before he rushed to the police car parked at the entrance of the village.
“Young man, what happened? What’s all the commotion over there?” An auntie who had been awakened stood at her door, poking her head out.
Liu Sheng gasped for breath: “Go back, go back! Stay inside and don’t come out… There’s a gun, someone’s shooting…”
He supported his waist, got into the police car, pulled open the pager hanging under the steering wheel, and turned on the two-way radio that Yu Chunming had given him.
“Captain Guan!” Liu Sheng shouted, “Something happened, something happened in North Lin!”
Guan Yao, along with Min Chao, was standing at the third fork in the Dan’an Highway, checking cars. That location was extremely close to He Wang’s IP location. And fifteen minutes ago, Guan Yao had just received a call from Li Xiaotian, who said that Fang Wang had been found, but Meng Changqing was still missing.
“Their car overturned. The road was too slippery, and it was snowing. They probably didn’t see where the road was, and the tires went off track,” Li Xiaotian said.
Guan Yao felt anxious: “Where’s Meng Changqing?”
“Not sure!” Li Xiaotian’s words came with the sound of wind. “Lao Fang hit his head! He’s still unconscious right now. We’ll have to wait for him to wake up to know exactly what happened! We’ll search around to see if Xiao Meng was thrown out of the car!”
Before Li Xiaotian could finish, the two-way radio made a buzzing sound again. Guan Yao’s nerves tightened, and he threw aside his phone to ask Yu Chunming on the other end, “How are you?”
But whether it was because the signal was bad or the wind was too strong, Guan Yao only heard a few intermittent words before the line went dead.
Bang—
In the empty valley, a muffled sound echoed between the mountains.
Guan Yao raised his head and looked up.
The gray night sky was like a black hole that could suck in souls, covering everyone’s heads. Snow and sand were flying around, the shadows of the trees looked like ghosts, and under the mountain depression, a diesel locomotive with a long whistle drove past, leaving behind a string of black smoke floating in the air.
Something’s going to happen. Something’s going to happen tonight, Guan Yao muttered to himself.
He clenched the two-way radio, walked through the snow to the leader of this group, and said, “I have to go back to the Linchang Police Station. My colleague Yu Chunming, he…”
“Captain Guan!” Suddenly, a desperate shout came from the two-way radio, “Captain Guan! Something happened, something happened in North Lin!”
Guan Yao’s breath hitched, and he pressed the button to ask, “North Lin? Are you and Yu Chunming in North Lin?”
Liu Sheng was starting the car. He said with a sobbing voice, “North Lin, tonight in North Lin, there was a report of a hunter losing a gun. Officer Yu and I went together, but when we got there, we couldn’t find the person who reported it, and someone took a potshot at us. Officer Yu told me to hurry to the main road and call for SWAT support…”
“Where’s Yu Chunming?” Guan Yao immediately asked before Liu Sheng could finish, “Where’s Yu Chunming now?”
“He’s, he’s…” Liu Sheng looked back at the dark village. He heard a gunshot again, and the sound seemed to explode in his ears, urging him to leave quickly.
“Officer Yu helped me, helped me draw the person away…” Liu Sheng said in a trembling voice.
The snow was already quite deep, and it was especially difficult for Yu Chunming to walk. He had worked up a sweat from running earlier, and he was so hot he couldn’t wait to take off his coat, but he understood that in Za Mu Er at the turn of late autumn and early winter, people could die from the frost of the northern country, and he had to find a way to survive.
The bullets were whistling in his ears.
“Where are you going?” a voice rang in Yu Chunming’s mind.
“Can you escape?” the voice asked.
Yu Chunming turned his head in panic, trying to find the source of the voice, but when he saw that there was no one behind him, he realized that he was hallucinating from the cold.
The section of road where Meng Changqing and Fang Wang had an accident was fifty kilometers further along the mountain road from North Lin Village, a wild path leading to Qianjin Slope. This afternoon, the person who disappeared there should have been himself, Yu Chunming thought blankly as he stood in the woods at the edge of the village.
At this moment, the map of the Jin A Lin Mountain district under the jurisdiction of the entire Za Mu Er gradually pieced together in his mind. He walked through the snow, calculating all the way:
Meng Changqing and Fang Wang disappeared on the way to Qianjin Slope, and to get to Qianjin Slope, they would inevitably pass the fork leading into North Lin. In other words, if Ai Hua’s statement was correct, He Wang would be going to Danfeng Pass tonight to meet him. The road he would take would also pass through North Lin and Qianjin Slope, so—
If the suspect who had appeared on K7629 with the police knew about this, would he also appear “as agreed” on this road leading abroad, just like last time?
Although Jiang Min hadn’t recognized who He Wang was, if He Wang really was Qian Guowei, who was “Yi Jun,” the suspect who had tried to track him through Liu Bin and Lin Zhimin?
Countless clues were intertwined, making it impossible for Yu Chunming to sort out what was happening at the moment. He stood in the snow and thought blankly, if the person who shot the gun was here to kill me, what should I do?
Bang! A gunshot cut off Yu Chunming’s thoughts.
“Gunfire! It’s gunfire!” Guan Yao, who had already arrived outside North Lin Village, said loudly.
Han Chen, who had come to support him, changed his expression, raised his hand to stop the SWAT officers who were about to go inside: “It is gunfire, and judging by the direction, it should be coming from the woods behind the village.”
“It’s the woods!” Liu Sheng, who had come to meet them, shouted, “After Officer Yu and I separated, he went to the right to draw away the bullets. The person firing the cold shots must have followed him into the woods.”
Guan Yao didn’t say anything more. He bit his lip and loaded his pistol.
Han Chen took a deep breath and ordered, “Don’t panic. I just looked at the map. There’s a railway behind North Lin Village that used to be used by the forest farm to transport timber. Now it’s under the jurisdiction of the Railway Bureau. This railway has a train from Za Mu Er to Da Muqi every day. Go around from the front, and you can go around to the other side of the railway. In a while, I’ll lead the SWAT officers to surround the woods. Guan Yao, you take these kids from the Municipal Branch Bureau and go in from the front.”
“Yes,” Guan Yao replied calmly.
Han Chen patted him on the shoulder, seemingly wanting to say something, but in the end, neither of them said anything.
Whoosh—
The wind was blowing even more fiercely.
Yu Chunming had just chased away two villagers who had been awakened by the gunshots, thinking that someone was setting off firecrackers and running over to join the excitement. He was walking quickly outward when he saw a swaying shadow behind a low, abandoned farmhouse at the edge of the village. This shadow seemed to have also noticed the visitor outside. It trembled and stopped moving.
A warning bell rang loudly in Yu Chunming’s heart. He flung out his police baton and shouted at the shadow, “Who’s hiding behind there? Police! Raise your hands and come out!”
The shadow didn’t move for a long time, and after a long while, it slowly walked out of the surrounding wall.
The farmhouse was pitch black, and there was no light in the woods. Yu Chunming had to turn on his flashlight, but the person suddenly shouted loudly, “Police comrades, save me, save me!”
Save him? What was going on?
Yu Chunming narrowed his eyes, holding the police baton in front of him, guarding himself: “Are you a villager? Why are you hiding in this place?”
The person covering his face cautiously glanced around, and then said with great horror, “Police comrades, someone wants to kill me!”
These words made Yu Chunming instantly vigilant. He turned back to look at the place where the gunshots had come from, and suddenly realized that the person’s voice was very familiar.
“Police comrades, please take me away quickly, take me away quickly! I need your protection!” The person pleaded almost in despair.
Yu Chunming didn’t put down the police baton. He turned around and looked up and down at this tall and thin middle-aged man wearing a large, baggy, tattered cotton jacket: “What’s your name?”
“I, my name is…” The person stammered, he said, “My name is He Wang.”